Tunc

First edition in French, a Service de Presse (advance) copy.
Three stains at top of rear cover, three small light stains on front cover.
Precious signed autograph inscription from Lawrence Durrell to his friend Janine Brun: "For Janine Brun of Sauve in the Languedoc from Lawrence Durrell 40 rue de l'Université chez Julian. 1969" ["For Janine Brun of Sauve in the Languedoc from Lawrence Durrell 40 rue de l'Université chez Julian. 1969"] enhanced with a small drawn sun and a Greek frieze bordering the autograph inscription on its left.
Among the olive trees and under the Mediterranean sun, Lawrence Durrell met in the mid-1960s the young and vivacious "Jany" (Janine Brun), a woman from Montpellier in her thirties of devastating beauty, who worked at the Antiquities department of the Sorbonne in Paris. She was nicknamed "Buttons" in memory of their first meeting, where the young girl wore a dress covered with buttons. Henry Miller also fell under the charm of "Buttons," praising her beauty and eternal youth in exceptional unpublished letters. The three companions spent memorable Parisian evenings of which we keep precious autograph traces through their epistolary exchanges. Recommended by Durrell, she made numerous trips notably to England from where she received vast correspondence from the writer as well as original works of art signed with his artist pseudonym, Oscar Epfs.